Decency at 30,000 Feet

…of Nikitas3.com

When 23-year-old college student and Hooters restaurant waitress Kyla Ebbert went to board a Southwest Airlines jet in San Diego on July 3, she was denied entry by a flight attendant who found Ebbert’s micro-skirt outfit too provocative. It was not right for “a family airline,” the attendant said after receiving a complaint from a fellow employee.

And after the incident was splashed all over the media, the usual suspects chimed in with eye-rolling indignation. Feminists speculated that we were going to roll back the clock on “women’s rights,” and liberals vowed that no person shall be restrained on the basis of their appearance. But Chris Mains, a Southwest spokesman, stood fast saying, “We don’t feel our employee was in the wrong.” And good for you and Southwest, Mr. (Mrs.) (Ms.) Mains.

Realizing that she had a publicity tiger by the tail, Ebbert appeared repeatedly for media photo shoots and opinion sessions. Yet in one seated internet pose, Ebbert has her legs artfully crossed because the outfit easily would have allowed any casual viewer to look up her skirt. Was her outfit in fact not pure provocation? Can such provocation be legislated against by a private business with decency in mind? And would it not be the loony-left feminists to be the first to protest some guy ogling Ebbert with hysterical cries of “Sexual harassment!!”

This incident brings to mind the case of the young males in Louisiana allowing their pants to hang down in public, exposing their underwear, and a local effort to legislate against it. The leftist civil libertarians have argued that it not your business how a person looks. And that is the crux of the issue, because it absolutely is your business when it is in the public domain. That is why towns have ordinances against public nudity and other odious behaviors. In your private oasis, we conservatives do not care how you dress. Outside — and in our private establishments — you have a duty to respect public standards, or ours.

But in today’s world, where leftist environmentalists are legislating how, when and where you may alter your private property; in a world where public health officials can tell you whether people can smoke cigarettes in your private bar or restaurant; in a world where private businesses are insistently legislated and litigated over how they may deal with their employees, customers and anyone else, we have a real dichotomy.

Because those same liberals are adamant that there are virtually no restrictions on personal behavior in public, that a young male may expose his underwear in the public square, and that any female may dress as she wishes on the public streets, neither with any regard for decency or offense. And now (and here’s the rub) they are trying to shove more and more of these unrestricted personal rights into the private domain as they see fit; at the very same time they are trying to restrict genuine private property rights (cutting trees, erecting buildings, allowing customers to smoke in a restaurant etc.). And it all adds up to one thing: Total government power over all property — both public and private — with no regard for rights or opinion…except that of government.

Our free society has a written and unwritten list of “rights.” Yet despite the Constitution’s guaranteed right of free speech, you may not shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater. And despite our once-total respect for private property rights, today we have allowed zoning regulations and zealous environmentalism increasingly to encroach on those rights. So where do we draw the line? At what point can we say that “rights” may be curtailed?

It all has to do with what Thomas Jefferson said was the crucial “will of the majority”, with the rights of the minority protected. And Ebbert has the right to dress however she wishes, and her right must be protected. But in the public square that she crosses, and particularly in private establishments, she should expect to be judged by the people she encounters. And with her provocative style, Ebbert could have expected plenty of reaction. Because many people in the Silent Majority are fed up with the low bar of decency that has descended on our nation. From network television trash to easily available pornography, many are simply fed up. The Southwest Airlines employee who lodged the initial complaint may have been a conservative Christian, or a disgusted parent who is tired of the half-dressed females that her children are encountering every day at the mall.

Southwest Airlines acted responsibly and within its rights. But the media will titter about the prudish nature of Southwest and are trying to use intimidation and shaming tactics against the airline. And naturally, Ebbert plans to sue and probably will end up in Playboy which will expose her true nature. So how about if we conservatives fight back, with property owners across America suing Greenpeace, The Sierra Club and their local enviro organizations for their endless restrictions on our basic right to do what we wish with our own private property. Then the playing field will be leveled out.

 

 

 

FHK Fighting-Women Archive